


Starlight & Paladin: Chameleon

by blue_and_copper



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Superheroes/Superpowers, Gen, Superheroes, superhero au
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-21
Updated: 2019-01-21
Packaged: 2019-10-13 15:32:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,673
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17490587
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/blue_and_copper/pseuds/blue_and_copper
Summary: Written for @braincoins' Shallura superheroes AU.Shiro knows a secret: his boss, Allura Fala, is the superhero Starlight, protector of the city. He has a secret of his own: by night, he plays the hero as well, as the masked Paladin.One night Shiro sees the impossible. Doubting his sanity, Paladin seeks Starlight's help as sinister forces beset the crime-fighting duo.





	1. Stars Misaligned

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [The Adventures of Starlight & Paladin](https://archiveofourown.org/works/16879890) by [Braincoins](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Braincoins/pseuds/Braincoins). 



> Starlight and Paladin courtesy of @braincoins. Takes place before either Starlight or Paladin reveal their identities and before Allura transfers from her position as editor at the World.
> 
> Much love as always to @braincoins for this wonderful AU that’s had me writing more than I have in the last few months. :)

Holding a brimming cup of soda in one hand and his cell phone pressed to his ear in the other, Shiro carefully navigated between tables and patrons, sidestepping children running underfoot and laughing couples leaning too far back in their seats. **  
**

“No, Mom, I told you, I can’t come home for his birthday. I’ll be there in time for Christmas, but I can’t take too much time off, I’ve got to be be back here before - well, you _always_ say I’m working too hard, but this job’s important to me. I’ve got some great stories I’m been working on, but they’ll run cold if I’m away too long. Well, yes, I enjoy it.”

Reaching his table, he lifted a shoulder to press the phone against his ear, plucking the drink out of his less-dexterous mechanical arm to set it next to his pasta bowl. Sitting down with the phone back in his hand, he listened with one ear to his mother on the other end of the line, stirring at the pasta before taking a bite. Speaking of getting cold - he grimaced as he took a bite of the noodles, chewing through spinach and tomato sauce before swallowing it down.

“Well, I wouldn’t normally have to fly first class, but I need more luggage space, I’m bringing you all some things I really know you’ll like.” He looked down into the triple-handful of shopping bags at his feet and smiled. “Even something for Mrs. Saito, to make up for not inviting her this year. Not that I expect her to be grateful!” Shiro grinned wide, hearing his mother laugh on the other end.

“I really am looking forward to seeing you again. And Dad, and-” He broke off, gaze suddenly focused from where he’d been staring into the crowds in the square around him.

He’d spotted Allura,  braids hanging at her back and swaying slightly as she turned to circumvent a group coming out of the cinema. She was carrying a large messenger bag, and Faraday Plaza was the opposite direction of her usual route home. Had she come here for the same reason as he had? He’d talked about his Christmas shopping plans to her earlier that day when Allura had stopped by his desk to ask about a source for an old piece he’d  written. Had he reminded her to get her own done at the same time?

She wasn’t wearing the same clothes as earlier in the day either, jeans and a loose black top instead of the white button down and suit pants from the office, and she’d taken off her glasses - Shiro blushed as he realized how much attention he’d subconsciously been paying her outfits.

Cutting off his mother, who’d begun talking again, about her decorations, he said “Mom, can you give me just a minute?” Setting his phone down on the table, he half-rose, lifting his arm and calling out “Ms. Fala!” in greeting.

Allura started and looked around, back and forth at the people near her before catching sight of Shiro. She waved hesitantly, shifting the strap of her bag higher on her shoulder and holding it close. Shifting his chair back, Shiro palmed his phone and stood, sidestepping to start walking toward Allura. “I thought you would still be-”

And then his pocket buzzed.

His left pocket, where he kept the transponder from Starlight, that they’d agreed to only use for emergencies. But Allura was standing right in front of him, so what…?

He’d stopped in his tracks at the sensation, and Allura was still standing some ten feet from him, smiling nervously and holding her large canvas bag close to her side. Shiro reached into his pocket with the hand that already held his phone, snagging the transponder and surreptitiously pressing the button on the side as he brought it to his ear. Listening through the sound of his mum bustling about the kitchen, he heard the sounds of fists, hitting flesh, and gargled exclamations - trademarks of his Starlight’s nightly activities.

He glanced at the darkening sky as he listened, absently noting the first stars coming out - Starlight was getting an early start, without him. But then his conscious mind reasserted control, demanding to know - Since Allura was standing in front of him, who was he listening to?

Allura, seeing his alertness, spoke up, saying “Shiro, what’s going on?” He held up a finger to stop her, half-turning away. Focusing intently on his earpiece, he made out yelled voices just barely picked up by the microphone on the other end.

“Agh! Damn bitch, hit her again!” Another voice: “My arm, my arm!” And then, “Go! Take the guns, go, get to the warehouse! Duck through Olivan’s! Fisker, to the garage! Now!” And then a cry, like the owner of the voice had been picked up and hurled into something hard and unmoving.

Olivan’s. The bar, at the front of Faraday Plaza. He’d walked under their hung signs and ornaments not an hour ago. That was only just on the other end of the square, or an alley past! He looked down through the crowds mingled amongst the Christmas decorations and could just barely make out some commotion at the edge of the lit area. Where the let-out from Olivan’s would be.

Allura’s sounds of effort were still coming through the earpiece, grunts and shouts as (he imagined) she whirled and kicked at her opponents.

Shiro made a snap decision. Holding his hand out to Allura, he said, “Wait- just wait- stay here, I’ll be right back!”

He turned to race through the crowd, leaving Allura standing behind him to call out “Shiro!” in his wake.

He dashed among the shoppers and cafe-goers bustling happily in the square, jostling people out of his way and darting side-to-side to avoid the larger groups. As he approached the bar and the darker streets beyond, someone slammed into his shoulder, spinning him around. Cursing, Shiro staggered and righted himself, looking back at the black-outfitted man shoving his way through the crowd. Shaking his head, he continued running, counting the side-streets as he turned into the boulevard. Empty alleyway,  empty alleyway, homeless man, parking entrance - there.

A black SUV squeezed into the narrow lane, with unconscious bodies laid around the wheels. Funny how the bad guys always seemed to drive cars that were bad for the environment along with whatever other evil deeds they’d perpetrated. Starlight was there in her full ensemble, currently holding the last man standing against the car with an elbow as she struck away his attempted punches with her other hand.

“Who do you work for?!” Starlight demanded as Shiro approached. “Answer me! Now!” A groan was her only answer.

“Starlight?” Shiro said incredulously, looking around at the battered men laid out around him. He saw at least seven - eight - scattered on the ground. He recognized their dress as similar to the traffickers they’d been hunting all these weeks.

“Shiro,” Starlight breathed, straightening up. The man in her grip struggled to free himself, and she looked back to her prisoner with a grimace and punched him across the jaw. Letting him slump to the ground, she turned to Shiro, shaking her head, asking “What are you doing here?”

Shiro swallowed, pulse racing. He should have been here to help, to make sure… His thoughts returned to the run over. The man that had nearly knocked him over. Damn. To make sure none of them got away. “I heard you… I - I heard -” He couldn’t say it. _He_ wasn’t supposed to have the communicator, _Paladin_ was. Then he remembered why he was here. Allura. In the square. What?

He turned around, saying to Starlight as he left, “I’m sorry, I need to…”

“Shiro,” she called out to him. “Shiro!”

He jogged back down the street, thoughts running ahead of his feet. That was definitely Starlight. The Starlight he knew, and… loved. Her fists, her outfit. And he’d seen her go into an apartment… and Allura walk out, minutes later. He hadn’t dreamt that. And he was a reporter, a damned good one. This wasn’t a mistake on his part.

He reached the table where he’d been eating. Pasta definitely cold now.

And Allura was gone.

Shiro let out a frustrated sigh, half-crouching to put his fists on his knees as he calmed his heartbeat. He’d see Starlight later tonight for their usual meetup, and Allura tomorrow. But he couldn’t say anything to either of them, without revealing that he knew they were the same person.

Unless they weren’t.

How could Allura and Starlight be in two places at once?

The phone in Shiro’s hand buzzed again, startling him out of his thoughts. He fished it out of the pocket he’d stashed it in during his run.

“Yeah, Mom, I’m here. Sorry about that, I got another call, and…” He blinked. “I thought I saw a friend.”

 

* * *

 

Now three blocks downtown, the tall black woman - in the jeans and black top with braids down her back and a large canvas messenger bag on her shoulder - looked around to ensure she was out of sight, then ducked into an alley. Five seconds later, another woman, dressed the same but with short blond hair and a smirk on her face, stepped out.

She pulled out a cell phone and tapped in a number. Only two rings before the line clicked through, and the woman spoke.

“It’s me. I have it. Yes, everything, even the personal effects you wanted. Doesn’t look like they’d found out very much. You’ll be able to hide whatever you like.”

She listened for a moment. “I promise, no news stories with your name in them. And I ran into one of her reporters on the way out, but I was able to shake him. I’ll drop the bag in the usual place. Good?”

An answer came, and she snapped the phone shut. With a self-satisfied smile, the changeling walked on, headed for the darker side of town.


	2. Chameleon

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Allura reports a break-in at her office. Shiro investigates the mystery of a woman who's not what she looks like.

When Shiro opened the door to the office building, he had to quickly step out of the way of two uniformed police officers walking out. They muttered thanks while striding away, and Shiro glanced back at them as the glass door swung shut.

“What were those cops here for?” Shiro asked Bob lowly once he’d reached his floor. Bob nodded his head upward in the direction of Ms. Fala’s office.

“Allura says her office was broken into last night. But there wasn’t anything stolen except a bunch of her files, she says, and there wasn’t ever anyone in her office besides her when the cops played back the security tapes.” Bob shrugged.

Shiro put up a fist, receiving an absent-minded bump in return as Bob turned back to his work. He dropped his bag off at his desk and looked to Allura’s office. She was seated behind her desk, but obviously not looking at her computer. A pen tapped in her clenched hand, her lip curled, and Shiro thought that if steam could have been pouring out of her ears, it would be.

He walked to her office door and knocked gently as he pushed it open. “Bad morning, I take it.”

“All my files are gone!” Allura burst out angrily, throwing down her pen. “Reports, interview transcripts, unpublished articles, background from everything this paper has published in the last three years, and they were _stolen_ right out from underneath my nose!”

“Bob said they didn’t see anyone on the cameras,” Shiro said, easing into the seat on the other side of the desk from Allura. “Did the police have no idea how they might have got in?”

Allura threw up a hand in disgust. “None.”

“Hm.” Shiro righted a pencil holder that looked as if it might have gone flying with one of Allura’s more fervent gesticulations. He could only imagine the earful the policemen would have got for being so unhelpful.

“The _work_ this is going to take to rebuild, it’s - it’s infuriating.” She shook her head angrily, then took a deep breath. A moment passed.

“I can’t help but think…” Allura started, much more softly this time. “I can’t help but think this has something to do with the last thing I was looking into.”

Shiro cast his eyes about for listeners, and saw that the door had shut behind him. He leaned in. “What’s that? If…” He quickly corrected himself. “If you don’t mind my asking, Ms. Fala.”

Allura turned to look at him, really look, and he shivered at her piercing gaze. Her eyes were nearly as brilliant as Starlight’s, up close like this. He felt very clearly that she was evaluating him. “You remember I asked you to look into the the new hero Paladin’s identity.”

It wasn’t a question, but he nodded anyway. Allura continued. “I did some of my own research, and while that’s not a story I am able to or want to publish at the moment, his and… Starlight’s activities bring up a certain pattern.”

Shiro’s eyes narrowed. “Activities. What do you mean by that, Ms. Fala?”

Allura rolled her chair back, turning to face out the window. Heavy clouds portended rain in the afternoon. “The traffickers they’re arresting show up in certain places, at certain times. I’ve begun correlating them with shipping companies to try to find their source, that sort of thing, and I’m afraid my research may have attracted the attention of the wrong people.” A sandal-clad foot swung idly back and forth. “I think whoever is behind the disappearances engineered a break-in here, to halt my research.”

_They’ll never stop us,_ Shiro wanted to say, but he couldn’t. Not to Allura. Starlight was the one he could say that to. And he wasn’t so sure either of them were safe anymore.

“If that’s true, you should be careful,” he said instead. “If they’re willing to come into your office, they’ll be watching you as well.” Allura nodded. Silence sat in the air between them for a moment.

“If there’s nothing else, Mr. Shirogane…”

“Actually, I wanted to ask if you were doing your Christmas shopping yesterday?” Shiro raised an eyebrow. “I saw you in Faraday Square. I would’ve come to say hello, but you vanished when I turned away for a second.”

Allura wore a confused look. “I went straight home last night, Shiro. Earhart to Fourth, like always.”

Shiro nodded slowly. “I… must’ve been mistook someone else for you, then.” His thoughts were whirling. It hadn’t been Allura he’d seen last night! But he’d recognized her at the time, he’d been only ten feet away: her hair, her face, even the off-pink nail polish she favored.

This raised more questions than it answered. “Would you mind if I took a look at the security footage, Ms. Fala?” Shiro said. “Maybe I can catch something the police couldn’t.”

 

* * *

 

Fifteen minutes later he was down in the server room with Kevin, the security guard. Shiro thumbed through the discs in the large cardboard box he’d been handed, then jumped as a second box thumped down next to it.

“This is all of ‘em, from the past two weeks, but you only need last night’s, ‘sat right?” Shiro nodded, rubbing his nose to avoid sneezing from the dust. “Aw’right.”

Kevin began flicking through the discs, stopping to check the printed labels every so often. A4DK. A2LL. A5BC. Chewing on a wad of gum as he did so, he told Shiro, “Only reason we keep these is fr’ insurance purposes. Two weeks, and then they get put back through th’ machine. S’lucky this wasn’t over the holidays when everyone’s working from home!”

Kevin tilted his box to the side. Pulling out a thick stack of CD’s from the back of the box, he slid it onto the table. And then a second handful.

“This is all the video from last night, each un’s got a letter label correspondin’ to the floor an’ camera location. But there’s hours’a video there… and only one computer… so...“ Kevin pointed to the door and made a meaningful face.

Shiro rolled his eyes. “Yeah, you can go, Kev.” Kevin clicked his gum and winked at Shiro, then strode out, hands in his pockets and whistling a cheery tune.

Within a few minutes, Shiro had become adept at navigating the program’s interface and quickly swapping out CD’s from the disc reader, and had managed to find the 3 CD’s that most closely showed Ms. Fala’s office. Clicking PLAY and starting the whir of the old Macintosh, Shiro tabbed through at quadruple speed, starting at the time he’d left the office.

Nothing on the first disc. The second disc. Nothing. Nothing. There. Allura leaving, letting the door swing wide behind her and slowly shut. The lights in the office getting turned down. And then, right before the recording switched discs - Allura again.

Shiro blinked, and sat up. Hit pause, then played it back at normal speed. He’d just watched her on the video, pressed navy blue slacks and white shirt rendered grainy by the poor recording. And now here she was again. He’d asked - Ms. Fala had told him, just before he’d come down here, that she’d gone straight home. So this wasn’t her.

It looked like Allura, still, but she was dressed the way _he’d_ seen her yesterday - dark jeans and black shirt. And here, she moved furtively, checking around corners that her normal walk would carry her right past. Shiro watched as not-Allura moved to open the door to the big office at the end of the newsfloor, and disappear inside.

Was it a disguise? A trick of the light? Shiro might have thought so, but he’d been _so close_ to her yesterday. He wouldn’t mistake her for someone else. Not-Allura on the video screen came out of Allura’s office, now with a canvas bag that bulged with what Shiro was sure were the papers that were missing. He swapped out discs and watched the tall, graceful figure breeze out of the building and onto the street.

Collecting the CD’s and his thoughts, Shiro stood up to go back to Ms. Fala’s office. If she could confirm this wasn’t her, they’d have something to take to the police. Or something he could hunt down himself - Shiro wasn’t sure where he’d start, but between his talent for journalism and how hard Paladin could throw a punch, something would out.

He turned a corner and started heading for the stairs, then registered the broad-shouldered figure walking towards him and stopped dead in his tracks, feeling like he’d been punched in the gut.

White button-down shirt. Skinny grey tie. Dark canvas messenger bag. A scar across the bridge of the nose. Black hair… except for the shock of white in the middle.

A wave of vertigo seized Shiro as he looked into eyes so like his own, glaring at him with cold malice, and his knees almost buckled. He watched himself continue walking, right up to and then past him, all the while fixing him with that malevolent gaze. “Wait… wait,” he gasped. _Ryou._ “Wait!”

He stretched out a hand, but his vision swam, and the figure was gone around the next corner. Shiro pulled himself up by a door handle, fighting the urge to vomit. “He’s dead,” he whispered shakily to himself. “No, no, no, no, no…”

Shiro forced himself to take a step. Then another. Somehow he made it around the corner, down the next flight of stairs, and into the lobby. People, at the front desk, sitting in the lounge, walking past the front door. He thought he saw his bag flash by outside, and ran out, shoving aside a woman in a business suit and falling over himself to get outside.

Nothing.

 

* * *

 

Shiro sat on his bed, back at his apartment. He sniffed and wiped his nose with the back of his hand, eyes red. Phone in his hand. His mom had told him, when he’d asked, _“I went to talk to him a few days ago. Brought a few candles, and those cakes he liked. Tsukiko left flowers sometime last week. She’s a sweet girl.”_

His desk had been cleared out of all his papers when he’d gone back upstairs. No one had noticed anything out of the ordinary.

Shiro gave a bitter laugh to himself, alone in his room. Of course they hadn’t. It’d just been _him._

He checked the time. Late. He’d been sitting numbly on his bed for hours now.

It was nearly time to head out on patrol. Shiro stood and stretched, twisting his neck to either side to hear the bones crack. It would be good to punch something tonight. And maybe Starlight could help him figure out what their next move would be, with a chameleon on the loose.

When he teleported up to the roof of their meeting place, Starlight was there already, last vestiges of sunset outlining her against the skyline. God, even her silhouette was beautiful.

“It’s good to see you,” he called out, walking up to her. “We have a problem.”

“And what is that?” Starlight asked, turning slightly to look at him. He stepped up on the ledge to stand next to her, looking down at the street below.

“I received a tip-off,” Shiro began, “that someone at the _World_ might’ve leaked information about us to the traffickers. Or someone in charge of them.” He rubbed his gloved hands together, it was chilly this high up.

“And what do they know?” His partner murmured.

“I’ve no idea,” he said grimly. “But it’s the _way_ they did it. Whoever it is can make themselves look like anyone. It’s a perfect disguise, so I have no idea who we’re even looking for-”

The thought strikes him at the same time as the shove, and his arms pinwheel for a second, desperately, before he falls, twisting just enough to see Starlight’s lips curve into an evil smirk as his mouth opens in a scream.

And the ground rushes up to meet him.


End file.
